[quote name='A Happy Panda']
I'm probably going to buy the TE S Edition stick tomorrow along with a copy of SSFIV, but I was probably going to swap out the square gate with an octagonal one. I was wondering if this made it any more difficult to pull off moves with charge characters, or would it simply require some practice? I wanted to get the octagonal gate because I feel it be easier to pull off moves with shoto characters because of the extra directional paths.[/QUOTE]
I put an octo gate in my modded SE after I bought my TE. It only took about a week for me to switch it back to a square, here's why...
Most of the stuff was the same with charge characters but some things were a little trickier (ie: Balrog's overhead and headbutt -> ultra). Since I mostly played charge characters I wasn't consistent on the QCF motions. QCF motions were a lot easier but I felt like SRKs were actually a little more difficult.
My biggest complaint with the octo gate is the throw distance from neutral to up, down, left, or right (
This article from Slagcoin explains it best). It just felt kind of weird, especially when dashing.
I will say using the octo gate made my QCFs 100% better on the square gate. In the long run, you'd be better to put in the time with the square before making the full transition. I can tell you if you were using stock parts on the SE, the TE's Sanwa stick is a lot better....